


Anti-Clockwise

by PoppyAlexander



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fantasy, Johnlock Roulette, Kiss Before The First Kiss, M/M, Masturbation, Roma | Rome, Sherlock Experiments on John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:40:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything about Rome is a disaster, and now Sherlock has (inadvertantly?) passed John a lockpick that fits the clasp of a Pandora's Box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anti-Clockwise

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [In Scandinavia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/634874) by [PoppyAlexander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander). 



> I reserve the "Explicit" rating for kink/non-con etc, and use "Mature" ratings for stories that contain even graphic sex between consenting adults (or by one consenting adult on his own, as here). This story contains graphic language.
> 
> This story pecedes the events of another of my stories, "In Scandinavia."

John had been told that Rome was beautiful, with a unique, golden quality to its light; ancient, magnificent art everywhere; chic Italian people in their chic Italian clothes, adhering to the letter of the law by “wearing” their helmets hung from their elbows as they zipped around on their Vespa scooters. What he found, instead, was that Rome in winter was dismally grey, with a leaden sky pissing down rain that was so close to freezing it actually hurt when it landed on any exposed skin and so loud when it hit your umbrella that it drowned out the voice of the person walking beside you.

At least, that was the excuse he was using.

It had been a wretched, asinine mistake, inviting Lianna along with him for a midweek mini-break in Italy. He was working with Sherlock on a case—banking, high-placed government officials with sky-high security clearances, somewhere in it something about a murdered call-girl (hence, a stop in Italy--where call-girls and security-cleared government officials too often crossed paths--before they went on to Norway, where the client and the end of the money trail were). John had thought he could balance time spent with his petite and pretty, brunette dating partner of the past six weeks, and time spent with Sherlock working on the case (it was only a few days--in a beautiful, romantic city--why waste the trip on only work?). Most of the past 48 hours John had spent attempting to remember a time when he’d been more wrong. So far, none had come to mind.

Sherlock was (of course) swinging unpredictably between ignoring John for hours on end and requiring his presence urgently, immediately, for god’s sake, John, where _are_ you? _I need you!_ Lianna had become annoyed after the first time John apologized and left her in a cafe to finish her lunch alone. When he met up with her later in the hotel (her room? their room? It wasn’t clear; John had not slept in it, though his bag was there. His phone and coat had stayed in Sherlock’s, though, as had his passport.), John put on his charm offensive: apologetic, hang-dog, flattering, flirting, self-deprecating. . . And it had worked:  her clothes came off, she beckoned him into the shower. Then Sherlock came pounding at the door, demanding John accompany him to a brothel.

That was yesterday afternoon. John had promised Lianna over breakfast this morning (more self-deprecation, bordering on self-flagellation; more flattery) that they’d spend the day strolling the city together, seeing what there was to see. Rome! White marble statues of angels and kings everywhere you looked; piazzas; the Trevi fountain. History. Art. Chic, sleek Italian people everywhere you looked. _Ciao!_

The moment their feet had hit the pavement, John regretted not having told her the mini-break was a bad idea. Not with a case on. He’d underestimated the time the work would take. He’d overestimated his ability to divide his attention. He was sorry. Could she understand? Because, as it turned out, not only was Rome in winter a disappointing shadow of its original promise, but so, too, was Lianna.

She wore ludicrous shoes and then whined that her feet were cold, they hurt, they were wet. Her fashionable jacket was too thin and so she was shivering. She hadn’t packed an umbrella. She hadn’t changed her money and she didn’t trust a second-world shopkeeper with her credit card number, so John had had to buy her one, and when she opened it, she was displeased that it bore a logo on it for some lowbrow brand of something-or-other—John had stopped listening by then, mineral water, maybe?—as if she were a Euro-fashionista rather than a counter-girl in a department store (she also breezily enthused about her love of Italian fashion brands, “like Louis Vuitton.” Even with only a few phrases of secondary-school French still rattling in the back of his brain, John knew that name was not remotely Italian). She’d forgotten to pack her phone charger; John would have to take all the photos and email them to her.

John was grumpy on only a few hours’ sleep, annoyed at himself, annoyed at her, spectacularly annoyed at Sherlock (certainly, Sherlock had an inkling of where the investigation would take them; he should have warned John that splitting his time would prove impossible, though John immediately recognized the futility of expecting such a warning from Sherlock, of all people). They ducked into a chapel to get out of the rain (John had to drop money in the donation box to pay the rent on a scarf to cover Lianna’s head) and look at stained glass representations of saints John knew nothing about (no church in John’s childhood, and no saints except--as far as his lapsed-Catholic mother was concerned--his cousin Mark who’d made himself the family black sheep by becoming a priest). Lianna made an off-colour joke about Jesus as a teenager, which could have been amusing from anyone else, but which John took as further proof of her utter wrongness as a travel companion. He chastised himself for not having noticed before that Lianna required so much cooing and cajoling to keep her mollified; John made a mental note to never again date a woman under thirty, no matter how long her legs were.

John studied the placid face of Christ, disciples staring up at Him adoringly, and had to admit Lianna made a valid point—there was at least a bit of a homosexual gaze there—but even still, people prayed here, they believed; as visitors, they should be respectful. John might have been able to tolerate her silliness better without the nagging, back-of-the-mind thoughts of Sherlock and the case—an agreeable nod, a well-timed compliment. . .certainly, John knew just where to click so that the day ended between a lady’s smooth thighs. But he was in a state of miserable overwhelm, and wanted nothing more than for the whole thing to be over and done. Even Lianna’s under-30 thighs weren’t worth the stress John was carrying.

 _This kind of thing ever happen to you, Mr. Christ?_ John wondered. _A frustrated attempt at a  normal life despite every single thing in it screaming at you in neon letters ten feet high how nothing will ever be normal again, that particular train’s already left the station, so  just lie down and get comfy on the tracks?_

Lianna had snaked her arm through his, possessively; John felt crowded, irritated. He’d have to do something drastic. He glanced once more at the mosaic of opaque, multi-coloured glass. _You’re a top fella, Mr. Christ; I have nothing but respect for Your work. But I hope You’ll forgive me: I’m about to tell a lie in your house._

“Oh, hang on. Getting a text. Could be about the case.” John reached into his coat pocket, stepped away from her, into the vestibule of the chapel. He looked at the blank screen of his phone (no one was texting). John huffed, shook his head, looked at his watch, tried to look annoyed and mildly distressed. Lianna was watching him from a short distance away; she frowned.

“Look, I’m sorry,” John said, drawing her along with him out of the chapel (she dropped the rented scarf—John figured it at about 150 Euros an hour—into a basket by the door). “It’s from Sherlock. I’m going to have to go.”

“I’ll go with you,” she volunteered.

“No, no, it’s a bit of a walk and your shoes are already wet. Why don’t I get you a taxi back to the hotel? I’ll meet you there later.” He had given up on the charm offensive; in the back of his mind he’d already decided to put her on a plane back to London, tonight if possible. “I’ll see you for dinner. Well. If we’re finished by then.”

John wasn’t entirely clear what this false errand even was, but he was sure it was going to take all day. Really, probably late into the evening.

Lianna agreed, a bit too readily, John thought—momentarily offended that perhaps she, too, had decided this trip was a bad idea—so he kissed her cheek, put her in a taxi, waved tightly as it pulled away. He ducked under an awning—she’d taken the umbrella!—to keep the screen of his phone dry. He texted Sherlock.

TXT from DrJW221B: Suddenly find myself without a companion. Free for lunch?

TXT from SH: Ticket change fee is 230 Euros. Can meet you in 30 min.

TXT from DrJW221B: Small price to pay. I will find a place and text you the address.

TXT from SH: I hear the Italian food is good here.

John laughed, pocketed his phone, glanced upward. The rain was letting up, though the sky was still the colour of mercury, and John was cold down to his bones.

He started to walk, in the opposite direction from the one the taxi had gone. He thought he might try to get lost, but knew he would never manage it even in utterly unfamiliar, winding, crowded streets; his sense of direction had been honed in the army, when getting lost might have spelled disaster, and not only for himself. He decided to wander, nonetheless: he was in Rome with time to kill. And the city was, in fact, stunningly beautiful, if you looked past the lowing herds of plus-sized tourists walking always infuriatingly slowly, always directly in front of you. John grimaced, blew on his hands to warm them. In his hip pocket, his phone came alive. He shivered as he tapped, “Answer.”

“Yes, Sherlock?”

“Hold up the phone; I’ll come find you.”

“I’m near the—“

“Shut up. Do as I say.”

John did as he was told, holding the phone up at shoulder height, turning it slowly in a half-circle for about ten seconds.

“That all right?” he asked. Sherlock had already rung off.

John spotted a café two doors down, across the street. Inside, he took a table by the window, ordered fussy Italian coffees (two) and a slab of pizza he felt sure no Roman citizen would ever eat in the middle of a day not their birthday (as far as he could tell, tourists ate Italian food and pastries while Italians ate cigarettes and espresso). The coffee he’d ordered for Sherlock was still steaming when John spotted the unmistakable silhouette striding up the pavement, Sherlock’s narrowed eyes scanning for evidence of him. John wondered if Sherlock needed glasses, all that squinting, imagined trying to get him to submit to an exam, shuddered and decided not to mention it.

Sherlock crash-landed in the seat across the tiny table from John, long dark coat swirling about him as his lanky limbs found their places: legs beneath the table, arms at right angles as he checked his watch.

“Seven minutes, 14 seconds,” he reported, taking a swig of the coffee.

“Well done,” John replied.

“Would have been faster, but I couldn’t find my phone.” Sherlock huffed an upward puff of breath in an attempt to rearrange his fringe, which settled in more or less the same place it had been.

“But you were on the phone when the seven minutes began. You told me to hold mine up.”

“What? Yes. Nevermind. There’s something I need from you.”

“Never once has that sentence been followed by something I found easy or pleasant.”

“Shut up.” Sherlock moved his chair beside John’s. He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and withdrew three plastic test tubes, each containing a long, cotton-tipped sterile swab. These he laid on the table.

John looked skeptically from the test tubes to Sherlock. He bit down on an urge to declare that clearly, he was not to be proved wrong about all of Sherlock’s demands being difficult and unpleasant, and simply pushed aside his plate and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. As ever, John was more curious to find out what happened next than he was annoyed at Sherlock’s inevitable demands. Sherlock broke the seal on one of the test tubes, drawing out the long swab carefully.

“Hold this. Don’t touch it to anything.”

“You might recall I’m a doctor.”

John balanced the swab upright between his thumb and forefinger. He raised his eyebrows at Sherlock.

“This means nothing,” Sherlock said archly, a faint smirk playing about his lips. In a fluid motion, Sherlock clasped one hand behind John’s neck, bunched John’s coat-front in his long-fingered fist, and in a half-breath’s time, Sherlock was kissing him: smooth lips moist with sugared Italian coffee, parting ever-so-slightly to fit against John’s.

John dropped the swab.

Sherlock drew back, glancing where the swab had landed on the floor. He nudged it under the table with the toe of his shoe. “I should have expected you’d do that.” He cracked a second test tube open.

“What!” John exclaimed, flushing, stammering, not angry, but vaguely hoping that’s how it came across. “Sherlock! What—why?” John looked around the café, but no one seemed to have noticed. He shifted a bit, lest the rising pressure behind the fly of his jeans give him away. “Jesus,” John muttered finally. “Buy a bloke a drink first, at least.”

Sherlock gave his most condescending, You-Fancy-Yourself-Witty smirk as he grasped John’s chin and poked the swab into his mouth, scraping it over his teeth and the inside of his cheek.

John summoned mild outrage, a valid disguise for his racing heart. “Stop that.” He turned his head, pushed the offending swab out of his mouth with his tongue, and swatted Sherlock’s hand away.

“Grow up, John.” Sherlock slipped the swab back into the tube, replaced the plastic lid, then applied an already-prepared label to the side of the tube. “It’s for science. Comparative forensics.”

John drew in a huge breath, closed his eyes, sighed it out again. “If this is some kind of experiment related to the case, I presume the people involved in that. . . _exchange_. . .were not particularly relevant.”

“No, of course not. I’m merely extrapolating data.”

“So could you not have used--for instance--Lianna as one of the participants?”

Sherlock looked annoyed. “She’d never let me kiss her. She called me a grey-faced alien.”

“She only said you _look_ like a grey-faced alien,” John corrected, infuriated that he was being dragged into the downward spiraling whirlpool of Sherlock’s off-topic fuss. “Anyway, what I meant was that _she_ could have kissed me.”

“Nevermind.” Sherlock made a disgusted sound and waved his hand dismissively. “It’s not important.” He quaffed his small cup of coffee in one go, rubbed his lips against each other to dry them.

“It might be important to me,” John protested, “not to have you mashing me in public without warning.”

Sherlock huffed. “Well if you’re going to be a prude about it, next time I’ll warn you. Will that alleviate your gay panic?”

John was insulted. “It’s not gay panic for Christ’s sake, Sherlock. . .”

“Consider yourself warned.”

“Thank you.”

And Sherlock was on him again, the taste of coffee stronger on Sherlock’s mouth now—sweeter too, sugar crystals crushed between his lips when he’d rubbed them together—and John’s eyes clamped shut in surprised surrender. Sherlock prodded John’s lips apart with the tip of his tongue, dipped it into John’s mouth. Sherlock’s hand clasped John by the chin as if to steady him, keep him from moving, redundantly as it were, for John was disinclined to pull away.

It was the first all-business kiss John had ever received. Despite the brusque, cursory quality Sherlock brought to the endeavour, John felt a familiar sensation in his gut: a tight, writhing tangle radiating liquid heat; a swirling tension; a taut, persistent crush that ached.

Countless times since he’d met Sherlock, John had imagined Sherlock kissing him. Taking John’s face in his hand, like he was doing now; grabbing at John’s clothes like he’d done earlier. He’d dreamed of it in his sleep, played the scenario in the back of his mind, wondered about it at the most inopportune moments. None of that had prepared John for the reality of it—Sherlock’s sugared tongue-tip sliding between John’s lips, the moist condensation of Sherlock’s breath lightly exhaled into the crease beside John’s nose. John’s skin tingled; there was a buzzing in his ears. Though he struggled for composure, John was coming undone.

Sherlock’s tongue circled John’s (quickly, twice, anti-clockwise), darted under and over, then withdrew; the tip of John’s tongue chased after it, reaching for more. Sherlock pressed his upper teeth into the soft inside of John’s lower lip, sucked it briefly between his own lips, then pulled away altogether. As if nothing unusual had happened, Sherlock broke open the remaining test tube, pulled out another swab. John could see Sherlock’s lips were flushed with colour, his pupils wide and black but closing down now in his ice-pale irises—Sherlock must have closed his eyes, as well.

Again, Sherlock matter-of-factly probed the interior of John’s mouth with the swab and John-- speechless, quivering, a knot of longing thrumming in his sternum—sat passively while he finished, grateful for a moment to collect himself. Once Sherlock had replaced the swab in the tube, shut and labeled it, he extended both test tubes toward John. “Take these to the lab at St. Bart’s, will you?”

 John accepted the proffered test tubes. “You realize we’re in Italy,” he intoned.

Sherlock shook his head. “Call a courier, then. Honestly, John, don’t act stupid. It’s incredibly tiresome.”

John slipped the test tubes into his shirt pocket without further protest. He busied himself with his coffee, stole sidelong glances at Sherlock who remained, as ever, impossible to read. John felt a flush of heat rise in his neck, his cheeks. He shook his head, as if he could shake off pieces of Sherlock Kissed Me, the mass of which presently occupied every available nook and cranny of his mind, leaving him precious little room for coherent thought.

“Meet me in an hour, in my hotel room,” Sherlock told him. Same enigmatic non-expression. Same matter-of-fact tone. Just Sherlock working a case, gathering evidence, making deductions. If the world’s only consulting detective recognized that he had just shaken John loose, he made no mention of it.

John set aside his empty coffee cup, reached into his pocket for money to pay the bill. “Yeah, good,” John managed. He gave a nod and a tight-lipped smile. Sherlock stood, raised the collar of his coat up around his ears, and started to leave.

John fussed a bit longer than necessary with the money; he knew if he stood right now, his weak knees would betray him and he would wobble.

As Sherlock passed by the café window, though, there was a rumble--angry shouts that sounded like dogs barking, like gunfire—somewhere out of John’s sight, but nearby, and then all at once there was a slushy-sounding thud on the plate glass window right in front of John, and Sherlock crumpled to the pavement in a heap.

John was out of his chair and out the door in an instant. Sherlock was rising to one knee, hand at the back of his neck. There were torrents of angry words being exchanged across the street, and up and down the pavement—all in Italian, of course, but an undercurrent of argument and recrimination was clear from tone and gestures.

“Sherlock!” John rushed to him, reached to help him to his feet, steadying his elbow. “My god. What just happened?” He tried to pry Sherlock’s hand from the back of his neck to have a look at whatever injury was there. Sherlock shook him off.

“I’m all right, John,” he assured. Then he raised his voice and let forth a string of what John surmised were curses and scolds in loud, florid Italian. Behind them, on the pavement in front of the window, John spotted the offending object—a now-shattered glass bottle, streams of its liquid contents sliding down the window into a puddle below.

A group of five or six young Italian men—possibly teenagers, certainly not much older—across the street were gesturing angrily, lewdly, replying in kind to Sherlock’s shouts with their own loud curses.

“What is it? What are they saying?” John demanded. He tried to guide Sherlock away, a hand on his shoulder, but Sherlock stood fast—even took a step closer to the mob—and went on shouting at them, gesturing in a decidedly un-English manner. The men guffawed, waved him off, laughed among themselves.

“Just go,” Sherlock said, and John fell in step beside him as Sherlock strode away down the pavement.

“Did that bottle hit your head?” John asked, trying to get a glimpse.

“I’m fine.”

“And the yelling. . .?”

Sherlock huffed a breath through his nostrils. “Homophobic slurs,” he intoned, still walking so quickly that John had to take an extra step every now and then to keep up with him. “Isn’t it strange how men terrified of the possibility of another man’s homosexuality almost inevitably resort to threats of violent sexual assault against him? It’s completely illogical.”

John glanced back over his shoulder; the group had been swallowed up by the crowds, and Sherlock had walked fast and far enough to have left them well behind, regardless.

“What—they saw you kiss me and so they—“

“ _Finocchio_ ,” Sherlock enunciated. “ _Nerchioso._ They were calling me a fairy. Shirtlifter. Faggot.”

There was a different buzzing in John’s ears now, and his chest tightened. He was furious, heart full of murder, as it always was when he sensed Sherlock was in danger. He stopped walking. Sherlock doubled back to him.

“Nevermind, John,” he urged. “Of course it’s ridiculous.”

“You were assaulted.” John’s voice was cool and tinged with acid, sounding to his own ears as if it came from far away. Now Sherlock took John by the elbow and started to guide him away.

“I’m not hurt. Don’t waste time on what small-minded idiots say and do; you’ll never have time for anything else.”

“It’s—“ John began. But it was a jumbled mess of anger in his head. It’s cruel. It’s unnecessary. It’s uncivilized. It’s stupid. It’s dangerous. It’s enraging. . .

 _It’s humbling_. Humbling to realize you’ve gone your whole life and never been that kind of target. Certainly, a target for schoolyard insults and taunts, once upon a time, but it was kids’ stuff. And more recently, a target for bullets and rockets, but nothing personal, mate—you invaded our country, what were we to do but shoot at you until you went away? But then _this_. . .this was properly frightening.

The thrum of blood pounding in John’s temples slowly subsided; his fists unclenched and his jaw relaxed. After casting one last backward glance, John fell in step beside Sherlock, who walked more slowly now. For several minutes, neither spoke.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” John asked, at last.

Sherlock nodded, and John decided to believe him. After another half a block, Sherlock said, “I have to go to the mayor’s office. If I’m not back at the hotel in an hour, contact Interpol.”

This caught John up short, and he stopped walking. Sherlock never broke his stride, made a right-hand turn at the next corner, and half-waved over his shoulder without looking back.

John supposed there was nothing for it but to return to the hotel and get Lianna on her way back to London.

*

As it turned out, Lianna shook her bob-haircut, pursed her already-narrow lips, and refused to leave the hotel room, let alone the country. But she was more than happy to help John fetch his razor from the bath, his pants from under the edge of the bed, his hat from the shelf in the little cupboard, and watch him stuff it into his small case. She’d had enough of being left behind while John ran off at Sherlock’s beck and call, but she was damned if she’d let him chase her away from her vacation in Italy. John apologized and wished her well, head lowered, stoop-shouldered. Lianna only made a skeptical noise and held open the door as he wheeled his case out of the room and down the hall to Sherlock’s room. John wished he could somehow put more distance between himself and yet another failed romance than the housekeeping closet between Lianna’s and Sherlock’s rooms.

He let himself into Sherlock’s room. He had a key. Of course he did. John would never have given Sherlock a key to his and Lianna’s room, so forcing his own key into John’s hand was Sherlock’s assertion that John belonged to him, that he could summon him and John would have no excuse not to come. Sherlock was as boundary-less as a toddler—as selfish and oblivious, as well—and it was beginning to dawn on John that the walls he’d erected to protect himself from Sherlock’s radiating need were, in the end, very porous indeed.

He lay his bag on the end of the bed—small double bed, it was only Sherlock in the room, after all, and of course he wasn’t sleeping anyway because he was on a case—and it felt like a surrender. John may as well give up the fight against Sherlock’s constant incursion into his private life (“Really, John, these vapid women you waste time with are even more boring than you are.”), space (“I always put my feet here. If it troubles you so much, move.”), and thoughts (“Tell me what you were dreaming just before you woke up.”). Sherlock was John’s parasitic twin. And while clearly Sherlock had siphoned up all the extra brains, all John got was an unwanted extra pair of feet in precisely the spot where he wanted to sit.

He checked his watch; it was about ten minutes before John was to contact Interpol. And say what? Something to do with Mycroft would probably do the trick, John imagined. All at once, everything felt ridiculous, and he sank heavily onto the edge of the bed, forehead in his hands. Rome and everything in it was a disaster.

Not to mention that Sherlock had kissed him, which had stirred up a roiling kettle of Need inside John to rival any that Sherlock asserted. For nearly two years, John had compartmentalized, denied, and poured drink down the throat of a nagging, insistent desire for Sherlock--with not insignificant success. But two anti-clockwise swirls of Sherlock’s tongue had utterly unraveled all of John’s diligent work to suppress it, and now his craving was positively rampant.

John lay back on the bed, legs dangling over the side of the mattress, hands covering his face, in exquisite misery. What was it about deep longing that felt at once so wonderful and so terrible? John decided to wallow in it a bit--just for a few minutes, the ache was exquisite--then he would tamp it down, pack it up, tuck it away again. Everything would be as normal by the time Sherlock returned.

John checked his phone; Sherlock’s time was nearly up. He sent a text.

TXT from DrJW221B: Are you OK, or shall I alert the authorities? BTW, we’re bunking together tonight.

A weird shiver; Sherlock potentially in danger right now—heart full of murder—and beneath that, the idea of sharing a bed with him later—heart full of longing. John closed his eyes again, still lying on the bed, phone cupped loosely in his hand atop his chest. It buzzed to life.

TXT from SH: On my way. Stand down. Been sent packing, have you?

TXT from DrJW221B: Can’t blame the girl wanting to finish her holiday. Just not with me.

John was about to add something about calling the front desk to request a rollaway bed, but left it aside and tapped, “Send.”

There wasn’t even room for a rollaway bed in the tiny room, John told himself, and anyway, it wasn’t as if Sherlock was likely to sleep. He was far more apt to climb fully dressed into the bathtub, rest his steepled fingertips against his chin, and stare at the drain plug until something brilliant occurred to him, or John made him move aside so he could shower (whichever came first).

It was the steepled fingertips that did it. There was something about that particular pose of Sherlock’s, how each and every one of his fingers seemed to be pointing the way to the washed-out pink of his lips,  that John saw inside his closed eyes, now and then, until he made a conscious effort to think of something else. Polishing his army boots.  A sandwich full of hair clippings. Stamford’s terrible dancing.

For now, though, there was only the ache of longing in the pit of John’s stomach, the hint of coffee and sugar at the corner of his mouth, and the insistent erection in his trousers. John let out a groan that was nearly a shout and shook his clenched fists at the ceiling. By kissing him (sliding his tongue against John’s, breathing against John’s face), Sherlock had passed John the perfect lockpick for the Pandora’s box of John’s ridiculous crush, and now the whole mess of it was spilling out everywhere—out of the back of John’s mind, smothering all rational thought, filling his mouth with Sherlock’s name, running down his throat to enlarge his heart and make it thump nearly out of his chest, then down into his guts, spreading the liquid warmth of desire that pooled there.

John surrendered, reached down to unfasten his belt and trousers, spit into the palm of his hand, grasped his cock and began to stroke. He shuddered relief, let his eyes fall closed.

There was a certain way Sherlock said his name, on those companionably quiet days in 221B after a case had finished, before Sherlock became restless and irritable looking for the next case: Casual, plaintive, undemanding, with a gentle upward inflection of proposal rather than demand.

_“John. . .”_

It was the most intimate moment they ever shared, Sherlock saying his name like that, leaving aside today’s surprise kiss. The sound of it echoed in John’s head, now. In the synaesthesic  confusion of his rampant desire for Sherlock, the sound of Sherlock saying his name became the sound of Sherlock’s kiss; the taste of his coffee-stained lips murmured John’s name in Sherlock’s baritone almost-whisper. John opened his mouth to pull in more air, stroked himself harder, quicker. He turned his head to one side, searching for a scent of Sherlock on the bedspread.

Only a few times before had John allowed his yearning for Sherlock—his lust, his adoration—to the surface of his consciousness such that he could not ignore it, ached with it, his cock hardening, demanding to be attended to. More often he found himself in need of a wank (to fall asleep; before a date) and while he was at it, thoughts and images of Sherlock arose unbidden in the heat of the act. Strangely, while John could conjure quite detailed and elaborate images of women—the way their tits bounced as they rode him, their closed eyes and lipsticked mouths as they sucked him, the moist folds between their thighs as he made them come with his fingers, his tongue—his thoughts of Sherlock were much less graphic, though in their way similarly detailed. Never having been with a man, never having seen Sherlock undressed, John found himself substituting visions that simply embodied his enormous, endless _wanting_.

John imagined himself tucking his nose in the hollow at the top of Sherlock’s jaw--just behind his earlobe--and inhaling. He imagined the way Sherlock might catch his breath, open-mouthed, or let out a sighing moan.

He remembered Sherlock silhouetted in a streetlight on a misty night, the way his limbs looked thin as wires in the haloed glow.

John wanted to suck each of Sherlock’s toes, hold Sherlock’s ankle in his hand and feel the way the tendons moved beneath the skin.

Now John withdrew his hand from his cock just long enough to lick his fingertips, spit into his hand. He was thrumming with pleasure; his hips rolled against the bed as he thrust his cock up into his sliding hand.

He wanted to consume Sherlock, devour him. He wanted Sherlock beneath every inch of his own skin, so that when John dragged his hand down his forearm, slid it down his thigh, curled it around his cock, both of them would shiver.

John wanted to claw Sherlock open, hand-carve the Y-incision in his chest to reveal a swath of midnight-coloured velvet; a flock of iridescent black birds with nervous, fluttering wings and eyes glittering crime, which would alight as one and disappear into the sky; Sherlock’s clockwork heart, which John would hold in his hands—so gently, so carefully—because although it was made of sleek, cool metal, a too-firm jostling would send springs flying, and it would never go back together again.

And now, something more concrete, terrifyingly real: Sherlock’s hand behind his neck, Sherlock’s tongue circling his own, and John’s eyes were screwed tight and he was nearly there. . .

The sound of Sherlock’s key in the lock jolted John off the bed; in two broad steps, John was in the tiny bathroom, shutting the door, leaning his back against it, hand still stroking. (Jesus, that was close.) Sherlock on the other side of the door. (Maybe only just, head tilted to listen for John’s breathing. Maybe resting his hand against the wood just behind the small of John’s back, maybe catching his breath.) John choked out a sobbing breath as his orgasm jetted through him, grabbed for a nearby handtowel and shoved it against his mouth as he moaned into it, eyes squinting tight shut.

A few seconds passed (long enough, maybe only just, for Sherlock to back away from the door, cross the room and assume a nonchalant position elsewhere) and John recovered his breath and rearranged his clothes. He washed his hands, eyeing up his reflection in the pitted little mirror over the sink. He began to pack away all this crush nonsense that had spilled out of the back of his mind, shut it up tight as he could, forgave himself the indulgence, but reminded himself who he was.

John squared his shoulders, pulled open the door. He did a pantomime of drying his hands with the handtowel and casually tossing it onto the floor, mostly under the edge of the bed (hiding the evidence). Sherlock was perched on the little writing desk, feet on the seat of the wooden chair in front of it. He’d thrown his coat across the bed, and now he sat rolling two more of those test tubes up and down between the palms of his hands. He grinned at John. If Sherlock noticed John’s shirt tail was out, or that his neck and ears were flushed dark pink (but fading), or that the hair on the back of his head was disheveled--as if he’d recently been lying on his back on something covered in static-producing fabric (presumably the bed)--he didn’t mention it.

“It’s been two hours since I started the experiment,” he said, the grin wanting to become a smirk.

“What? In the café, you mean?” John asked, clearing his throat. Twice.

Sherlock nodded.

“M-hm. So.”

He stood, still holding the test tubes between his palms, resting his steepled fingertips against his chin. He narrowed his eyes at John, raised an eyebrow, his face the very portrait of a possibly-degenerate rake, issuing a probably-dangerous invitation.

“In thirty minutes, I’ll have to kiss you again.”

 

-END-

**Author's Note:**

> Primary inspiration for setting a story about longing and desire in the city of Rome: "Dear God Please Help Me," by Morrissey. (Spot the adapted lyric!)
> 
> Secondary inspiration for poetic flights of fancy: "El Monte," by Girl in a Coma (Spot the adapted lyric!)


End file.
